


under cover, hide-away

by MissFaber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark Are Not Related, Jon Snow and the Starks Are Not Related, LMAO, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Romance, Roommates, oh my god they were quarantine mates, self quarantine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:28:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissFaber/pseuds/MissFaber
Summary: Jon Snow and Sansa Stark have been living together for nineteen months— not that Jon's counting— floating through their shared living space like magnets, never colliding. Jon wishes he could understand the reason for the distance Sansa seems to be placing between them, but Sansa keeps her thoughts close. When the threat of the coronavirus escalates and the roommates decide to self quarantine, everything comes to the surface—shame, secrets, and suppressed desires.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 93
Kudos: 222





	1. settlements and secrets

**Author's Note:**

> [(x)](https://missfaber.tumblr.com/post/612702664454766592/under-cover-hide-away-a-surprisingly-serious) ummmmmmm I have nothing to say for myself

“But don’t you think we’ll want to kill each other?”

In the second before she speaks, her eyes are hooded, looking down—a sliver of blue. Her brows above them are stitched together. Her teeth dig into her bottom lip. Then she turns away, hiding her face from him altogether.

The question, delivered in earnest instead of as a joke, surprises Jon. He knows Sansa has been nervous about the escalating threat of COVID-19, nervous about the possibility of self quarantine—but he thought it was because of her job, because of the danger of mass hysteria, because of other things. _Not_ because she was nervous about the possibility of being locked away with him.

No, _he_ was one nervous about that, and not because he thought they’d “want to kill each other”.

“Uh, no.” He tries to keep his voice nonchalant, takes a bite out of the egg bagel in front of him to keep up the casual charade. They’re ideal roommates, he and Sansa—matched in mannerism and routine, rotating around each other in their shared living space like two magnets, never crashing. Smooth. He thought she _liked_ living with him… Jon stamps down the swell of panic rising at her words. He’s overreacting—anyone would have anxieties and reservations about being in quarantine with someone else indefinitely.

Sansa looks at him, brow smooth now, a small smile twisting her mouth. “We’ll have to draw up a schedule for the bathroom,” she says, an attempt at lightening her earlier words, too late.

“Sansa,” he says, and her face changes, mask slipping. “We don’t know how long this is gonna last. I don’t want to… make you uncomfortable.”

It was why he’d asked her to talk about it in the first place, instead of just assuming they’d self quarantine in the place where they both lived—the natural choice, once the state declared a state of emergency and Sansa’s company went fully remote.

Her eyes soften. “It’s not _you._ It’s… well… the idea of being stuck, trapped, in general. You know I go stir crazy.”

“I know.” Sansa was a butterfly, floating through the house, beautiful and elusive. Art shows and two book clubs and yoga in the park every Sunday—and, of course, work. He was lucky if he caught her at the tail end of a meal eaten at the counter before she was flying out the door.

Now, she’d be home all the time. The thought makes his throat dry.

“And I don’t want to go home,” Sansa continues. Jon knows this, too. Not only is Winterfell a six hour flight away, but it has no cases of the virus yet, and Sansa doesn’t want to endanger her parents by traveling from a city with sixteen confirmed cases.

“So, it’s settled,” she says, a flutter in her voice.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Jon protests automatically. The thought of Sansa staying with him because she feels she has nowhere else to go makes him sick. “I can leave. Go stay with Sam. He won’t mind.”

“I think Gilly would,” Sansa frowns at him. “Jon, I’m not kicking you out of your own house.”

“Theon, then,” Jon offers, though the thought of being quarantined with Theon is not at all appealing.

“Jon…” Sansa’s voice is like honey, drawn out and sweet. Exasperated. She drops her open faced bagel on the plate—he notices she’s only taken two small, distinct bites—to take his hand in hers. She wraps her long fingers around his for a moment, just one, squeezing briefly before pulling away.

“It’s not you,” she says again, and the open sincerity in her face would reassure him were it not for the hint of something darker behind her eyes. “I promise. It’s just weird, the whole thing… I can’t believe I won’t have to go to work anymore… don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself,” she trails off in a mumble.

Jon studies her—she’s always been difficult to read, even when they were children. Too gracious, too polite. He knows she hates her job—it’s beneath her—so he can’t shake the feeling her anxiety is rooted in something else, that it’s _him,_ it’s the thing inside him he’s tried so hard to conceal. Has he made her uncomfortable? Has he somehow overstepped?

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” Sansa smiles. “You’re easy to live with, Jon Snow.”

Though he isn’t quite in that place of levity where he can reply with something witty, off the cuff—it’s a tough place for him to reach—when he smiles back, it’s true. “Okay. Good.”

“Good,” she echoes, smile melting into something soft. She holds his gaze, and his stomach flips. He looks away.

“Okay, I’m gonna…” Jon hears more than sees her slide off her chair. “Call my mom, and I have some things to do in my room…” 

“You didn’t eat,” he protests.

“You have it,” she replies easily, already across the kitchen; another part of their rhythm. Sansa doesn’t eat leftovers—prefers her meals fresh—but there’s never any waste, because Jon polishes them off.

“That cream cheese is gonna hurt my stomach anyway,” she continues, and Jon adds her dairy free vegan spread to his mental grocery list.

“Later we’ll go food shopping,” he reminds her, and she turns at the opening of the hall, mouth open in horror.

 _“No,”_ she groans, and now Jon laughs. He knows she’s thinking about the dozens of videos they’ve been sending each other over the past few days; horribly undignified but undeniably funny grocery store fights.

“We’re not doing that,” Sansa protests.

“Of course not,” Jon responds easily, feeling lighter now. “Don’t think you could hold your own in a fight.”

She crosses her arms. “I’m serious. People who can’t afford to stock up… now they can’t buy diapers or baby food or tampons, _any_ necessities… it’s upsetting, and _so_ unnecessary.”

“I know, but Sansa, we’ve talked about this.”

“I don’t want to be a part of that.”

“We have to. I _know—”_ He held up his hands soothingly when Sansa opened her mouth again. “People who can’t afford to panic buy are going without. But the fact is that everyone is buying in bulk, whether they want to or feel forced to, and if we don’t get some things we won’t have food. That’s just the reality.”

Jon watches Sansa chew on her lip. They’ve talked about this almost daily, after every grocery store fight video and after Sansa sent him a Buzzfeed link to empty grocery store shelves around the world.

“We won’t go overboard,” she hedges. “Right?”

“Of course not.”

“And maybe we can get some things and donate to a shelter or something.”

Jon nods even as he goes through the technicalities mentally—whether shelters would be accepting donations from untested people, whether it would be safe for them when they should be social distancing.

“We’ll disinfect everything first.” Sansa rolls her eyes at him, and Jon feels his face heat at being caught out. 

“Well, text me when you’re ready to go.”

She arches a brow. “Are you going somewhere?”

He grins wryly. “No. Not for a while.”

The smile that unfurls on her face is slow, hesitant. Precious. “Then I’ll see you soon,” she says, voice uncertain and hoping like her smile. She turns before he can react, her hair whipping behind her with the speed of her movement. Jon sits in the space she left behind—their world for the next few weeks at least— the space charged with a tension he wonders if only he can feel.

* * *

Sansa didn’t mean to lie when she said she’d call her mother—she _is_ going to call her mother—but there’s someone else she has to call first, someone she can’t even wait to call until she’s thrown herself onto her bed.

 _“So?”_ Margaery picks up on the first ring, just as impatient.

“I’m staying here,” Sansa says. “With Jon.”

“Not the worst person to be quarantined with,” Margaery teases.

 _“Marge,”_ Sansa groans. “I’m scared.”

Her friend sobers instantly. “Sansa, don’t be scared. There’s _no way_ Jon will throw you out if something happens with your job.”

“I don’t want that though.” The panicked words leave Sansa in a rush. “I don’t want to contribute nothing, to be— _heavy,_ a burden—”

“Jon won’t see it that way. He loves you.” Margaery pauses. “You’re like family.”

Sansa fights the instinct to roll her eyes. “And there’s a reason I didn’t go to my family the first time I needed help.”

“Yeah, your dumb pride.”

“It’s not _pride,_ and it’s not dumb! It’s… dignity.”

“Whatever. And you did go to Robb eventually, and didn’t that make everything better?”

Sansa bites her lip. Neither of them know—not her brother or her best friend—how bad it got before she caved, before she called Robb in tears.

“But I don’t want to be his—his—charity case.” She’s had to be one before, but never to him, not to Jon; she doesn’t know if she can stomach it. His pity. She is Sansa Stark to him, an exalted position. Would he still like her, would he still _respect_ her if he realized how much of that was a façade?

Sansa is not _that_ Sansa Stark anymore; the honor student, the valedictorian, the campus philanthropist. She isn’t even Sansa the artist anymore—she doesn’t have time for her art, working fifty hours a week at a top law firm. Even though all she does there is answer phones, it seems to suck all the energy from her, and after hours all she wants to do is enjoy herself or rest.

She isn’t the Sansa Stark Jon thinks he knows, hasn’t been in years. Dozens of bad decisions have dissolved her, until she became this sliver of her former self; a receptionist in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, sure to lose her job.

“Unless you’re nervous for another reason.”

Sansa blinks. “No… I mean, it’s crazy out there, but I think I know how to stay safe—”

“Not _co-vid-nine-teen.”_ Margaery enunciated each syllable pointedly. “The person you’re being quarantined with because of _co-vid-nine—”_

“I get it, and I wish you’d _stop,_ Jon doesn’t make me nervous.”

“I think he does, or else you wouldn’t avoid him so much.”

“How do you know that? Did Jon tell Robb that and he told you?” The interrogation is out before Sansa realizes she gave herself away. “Wait, wait, I _don’t_ avoid him. Jon’s the best. He’s…” She swallows. “I’m not home much because I like to spend time doing things that make life worth living, because my job certainly doesn’t do that for me.”

 _“Mmhmmm,”_ Margaery purrs, sounding entirely unconvinced. “And you couldn’t do some of those things with your lovely roommate? Drinks once in a while? Invite him to yoga? I think he’d be good.”

 _“We_ do yoga together,” Sansa protests weakly, out of arguments.

“I like Jon. I wouldn’t be opposed to him joining us.”

“Moot point, anyway.”

 _“Right,_ because you’ll be stuck with him at home twenty four seven now.”

Sansa swallows, a motion Margaery seems to hear. Margaery sighs. “Look… _I’m_ nervous about being quarantined with Robb, and he’s my husband. Like I’m literally scared I’m going to murder him. Or, like, lose all attraction to him.”

Sansa lets herself roll her eyes this time. The two are disgustingly attracted to each other, and seem to revel in letting their companions know it. “I’ll take that bet.”

“No dice. Actually, I have to go, Robb’s—

Sansa hears Robb’s shout in the background. _“Is that Sansa?_ Has she gone to the store yet?”

“Tell him I’m going today,” Sansa responds. “Bye, Marge.”

Sansa calls her mother next, the two speaking for over thirty minutes—well, mostly Catelyn rattling off warnings and advice to Sansa, who listens patiently. “No bars, no restaurants, _no_ public transport…”

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Sansa reassures her gently, again and again. In truth it’s her mother who is in a vulnerable position as a breast cancer survivor, which Sansa cannot keep from reminding her.

“Your father’s taking good care of me,” Catelyn waves off her concern. “I hope Jon is doing the same for you,” she adds more sternly.

“He’s—he is—” Sansa sputters, startled by the comparison. Jon is not to her what her father is to her mother. Jon owes her nothing.

“We’re taking care of ourselves,” she replies carefully, then, softer: “I promise, Mom. We’re going shopping later and he has a good list.”

“Good, now remember to sanitize everything when you bring it home and don’t touch your face when you’re at the store…”

The list of warnings continue. When the conversation seems to be drawing to a close, Sansa feels fear for the first time—fear she is unable feel about herself, when it feels like the overblown pandemic can’t touch her. But it feels all too real when she thinks about her mother.

“Mom, please take care of yourself,” she begs, voice small. 

“I promise I am,” her mother’s strong voice replies. “I’m staying well read, and _inside._ Your brothers are being very good, following every precaution. We’re good here, sweetheart.” 

Once they’ve said their goodbyes, Sansa opens her bedroom door and pokes her head out. “I’m getting ready to go!”

After a moment, Jon shouts back, “Okay, give me ten!”

His voice sounds muffled, but closer than she expected—delivered through his own closed bedroom door. She hears a following low murmur—he’s on the phone too, then. As she changes out of her faded jeans and tattered t shirt into a sundress—it’s over seventy degrees outside, and who knows when she’ll have occasion to wear a sundress again, she thinks morosely—she wonders in a decidedly absent-minded way who Jon could be speaking to. She wonders what he’s telling them. _Quarantine with Sansa Stark, lucky me._

* * *

“That was Sansa,” Jon pants into the phone, suddenly and needlessly out of breath. “I have to go soon.”

“You’re not getting out of this so easy,” Sam objects, then repeats his earlier question. “What are you so afraid of?”

Jon’s already pondered the question, for several days, but the complete answer eludes him. He’s only caught the edges of it, and that’s what he offers Sam.

“I feel like she doesn’t really want to be here,” he says, slowly, the words hurting him more than he expected when spoken aloud. “I’m not sure why. And it’s fine, well, it’s _manageable_ when we’re living normal life. But now… I don’t want her to hate being stuck here, feel trapped… _she_ used those words, Sam. ‘Stuck. Trapped.’”

Sam is quiet for a moment, thinking, something Jon appreciates about his friend. “She’s usually a busy person, and now she won’t be. That would disturb anyone.”

Jon knows this to be true. He also knows, is painfully aware of, how different they are. That was what placed distance between them in childhood. She went to ballet and the mall, he went to soccer and the arcade. Nothing to bond over, he thought, not like Arya and the boys. Then they both started going to Saturday Tween and Teen Book Club at the local library. They were the only two of the Starks, the only one either of them knew, yet she never crossed the circle of chairs to sit by him, to talk to him.

The small rejection had stung the younger Jon so much that he’d never crossed the circle, either.

“What if it’s not just that?”

“You’re the only one who can figure that out, Jon,” Sam replies patiently. “And you’re going to have nothing but time to do just that.”

* * *

“Ready to go?”

Jon is standing in the open apartment door, keys in hand, watching her hover in the kitchen. Her body responds to his voice, leaning towards him just a bit, like a plant to the sun.

Sansa grounds herself, leans away. “Just a minute.”

She gathers her tote bags from the cabinet underneath the sink before she follows Jon out of the apartment. She’s never needed all of them before, yet she suspects they won’t be enough for this _unique_ trip to the grocery store. She checks her small crossbody bag for her wallet; she’s determined to pay for half, or at least her share of the groceries, no matter what Jon says.

As she pokes around in her bag, the screen of her phone lights up. He’s calling, again. Sansa holds in a sigh, aware of Jon standing inches behind her, locking the apartment door. She pulls out her phone and scrolls through her call log for a few seconds before shoving it back into her bag. She’s seen enough. A dozen lines of his name printed in red in her missed call log, a dozen more ignored texts. She won’t call him back. Never again.


	2. pop tarts and pilferers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [check out the photoset for this fic!](https://missfaber.tumblr.com/post/612702664454766592/under-cover-hide-away-a-surprisingly-serious)

As they walk to Jon's car, Sansa seems perturbed; her gaze faraway, at that place he can't reach. Concern floods him as he observes her knitted brow, the downward tilt of her mouth, the same concern he feels anytime her face holds anything but a smile. He wants to ask her if she's alright, he wants to ask what’s wrong, he wants to _help_ — but Jon knows now that any inquiry will result in a polite but dismissive “I’m fine.” Sometimes she’ll give a brief description of a minor concern that Jon suspects can’t be the true reason for the disturbed, sometimes haunted look in her eyes.

“How’s Catelyn?” he ventures. Jon can’t imagine the worry Sansa’s feeling for her mother right now. He himself can’t bear the thought of any of the Starks being harmed, and he imagines his concern is only an echo of hers.

“She’s taking precautions... worried more about us than herself.”

“That sounds like her.”

They walk in tandem; his stride is longer than hers, her pace is faster than his. Her toes peek out of her open toed sandals. Sunlight glints off the butter yellow polish.

Jon blinks, as if waking from a trance, realizes he was staring at her _toes_ and quickly speaks to move past his private embarrassment, to remind himself he is almost family to her. “Have they cancelled school up there?” 

“Not yet… no cases of the virus in the town, but it’s only a matter of time. Mom and Dad are keeping the boys home. And Dad isn’t going to work anymore.” 

Jon wonders about how this shift must be for Ned, to go from traveling to work every day to staying home. It’s easier for Jon, who already did most of his consulting work remotely. But for people like Ned and Catelyn, like Sansa, there’s an adjustment. There’s a threat to their job security.

But Ned and Sansa aren’t in the same boat. Ned has a career thirty years strong, will be able to bounce back even if the worst happens. Ned undoubtedly has a sizeable nest egg and contingency plans to be able to take care of his family in the worst case scenario. He knows Sansa doesn’t have the same safety net, and he knows she’s worried about it, even if she hasn’t talked openly about it. He can understand that, he supposes.

“Is Rickon driving them crazy?”

Sansa laughs, and Jon can’t help the spike of pride at causing it. “He’s a hurricane. If the weather was better, they could put him outside, but it’s still freezing up there.” She laughs again, perhaps picturing the disaster up there in Winterfell. “Bran tries to help mellow him out with video games. The hardest part is getting him to do his schoolwork.” 

Jon shakes his head, thinking of the stubborn, wild boy fondly. “You’re their only hope there,” he says without thinking, then regrets it. He doesn't want to make her feel like he wishes she was at Winterfell, instead of here with him. 

Sansa looks at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well...” His mind scrambles for the response that would cause the least damage. “You were always best at getting him to behave,” he settles. “Or to calm down. When he went through that phase after we went to the zoo, when he was scared a giraffe was gonna come through his window, and he’d scream all night. You’re the only one who could get him to stop.”

“I can’t believe you remember that.” A mumble with a touch of wonder. Jon is relieved that she doesn’t seem upset by his earlier comment.

“Well, Rickon listens to me because I bribe him, and Mom won’t stoop that low.” 

Jon shakes his head. “He just likes to make you happy.” 

He’s grateful that this is the moment they reach his car. He unlocks it quickly and ducks in, hiding his suddenly red face, and hopes he looks composed by the time Sansa goes around and ducks into the passenger seat. 

“Shop Rite?” Jon checks, although he’s pretty sure he knows the answer. 

Sansa nods. “No Whole Foods for me today.”

“They don’t have the yogurt you like,” Jon reminds her. 

“I’ll live.”

“Well, let me know. We can make two trips.”

The ride out of the city to the huge Shop Rite that actually has parking—unlike most of the city grocery stores— takes somewhere between twenty to thirty minutes. Sansa makes the time fly. She commandeers the AUX cable, jumping from playlist to playlist on her phone, teasing him for not knowing her alternative bands. Jon responds in kind, educating her on nineties hip hop, spelling out artist and song names for her to play. She teases him about the last time he sanitized the cord, the charging cable, and Jon retaliates by threatening to take her to the car wash right then and there, an errand he knows she hates. By the time he pulls into a spot in the congested Shop Rite parking lot, it barely feels like any time has passed at all. 

“Hold on.” Jon reaches into the pocket of his light jacket, but before he can withdraw the little Ziploc Sansa has pulled out two sets of disposable gloves and a little bottle of sanitizer from her purse. 

He grins. “Great minds,” he says quietly, taking the sanitizer first from Sansa’s outstretched hand.

“Now, remember not to touch your face with that glove on,” Sansa says in a high, shrill voice clearly not her own, making Jon grin wider.

Jon turns to face her slowly. “Was that an _impression?”_

She purses her mouth and raises her brows, half turning away from him. “No, not at all.”

“I think it was.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Who was it?”

“Mom.” She winces, biting her lip as if to hold in a laugh. “Did it not show through?”

Jon's near shaking from the force it’s taking to hold in his laughter. “I think I need to hear more to judge...”

Sansa slaps his arm with her gloved hand. “Alright alright, let’s go.” 

They’re walking towards the sectioned off area of carts— there’s less than ten or so carts, and Jon starts to dread the overwhelming crowd in the store—when he hears a voice calling, and he sees Sansa slipping behind him and straying into the road. 

“Sansa?!”

She turns to him, still standing in the middle of the road— a car has stopped for her, several piling up behind it— and points. “I think that woman wants to speak to me,” she says, a bewildering explanation, and continues to cross the road after raising a hand in apology to the stopped cars.

Jon follows her without a thought. Someone cusses after him, but he ignores it. He reaches her before she reaches her destination and slings an arm around her waist to stop her— again, acting without thinking. 

“Sansa, what’s… who’s trying to talk to you?”

Before she can answer, a woman in the passenger seat of the long gold sedan in front of them speaks, arresting his attention. “Thank you for answering me... we’ve called out to a few people but none of them wanted to stop... you look like such a lovely couple.”

Jon’s too confused to correct her. She’s an old woman, wizened skin and a cloud of grey hair. Sansa doesn’t seem perturbed by the woman’s attention or her incorrect assumption of their relationship status. She takes a step towards the car but no more than that, keeping her distance. “Of course. Do you need help?”

“We do,” the woman admits, wringing her hands inches away from her face— hands that Jon can see are gloved. Beside her in the driver’s seat is a man who must be her husband; just as aged, hair completely gone. “We’re afraid to go into the store, you see... we’ve been waiting for someone who looks, I don’t know...”

“Trustworthy. Nice,” her husband continues when she drops off. “Hard to tell these days,” he finishes in a gruffer tone, squinting at Jon. 

“If we give you some money and a list, could you do our shopping for us?”

“Of _course,”_ Sansa assures them, and Jon watches her as she launches into a stream of heartfelt reassurances. She assures them she will be safe, lifting her gloved hands as proof, and that she’ll return with the items on their list. Jon’s throat feels thick as he watches her. He remembers, suddenly, a tweet he saw that said the western world doesn’t stand a chance against the pandemic because they have no sense of community. It’s survival of the fittest, every man for himself. If everyone was like Sansa, Jon thinks, they’d be in much better shape.

The old woman blinks at him, and Jon suddenly hears the silence, then realizes belatedly he hasn’t spoken through the whole interaction. 

“We’ll take care of it,” Jon promises them. “It’s no problem.”

As they walk away from the gold sedan, Sansa twists every few steps to smile and wave at the old couple, who are watching their retreat. Jon pulls a cart out of the cart area, and Sansa worldlessly pulls and then starts pushing another. Jon doesn’t realize he’s staring at her until she raises her chin, arches a brow and demands, _“What?”_

He should feel embarrassment at having been caught out, but he can’t find room around the warmth that's flooded him. “That was kind of you.” 

Sansa looks at him softly, the way she had before she’d taken his hand that morning. But she quickly breaks their gaze, chuckles. “You’re the one who’s gonna have to carry all their things into their car,” she jokes, dismissive and clearly uncomfortable. Jon hates the way his face, his voice, everything seems to be so transparent around her.

“It _was_ kind,” Jon replies in an even tone, hoping to steer them to the place they’d been in the car, when her face was open and the conversation flowed easy. “Come on. Take credit.”

Sansa looks at him. “Fine. I’m awesome.”

“Better.” 

“I’m the _fucking best.”_

He grins. “Fantastic.”

Sansa lets out a laugh as she lifts herself off the ground, flying on the cart for a few seconds like a child. “You know, we’re going to look like the greediest couple of jerks in there.”

Jon doubts that. “Well, if someone’s got a problem with us, get behind me,” he says, only half joking. 

“You’ll watch out for me, huh?”

Her tone makes it clear she’s joking, but Jon replies earnestly, unable not to, watching the play of the sun on her bare shoulders. “I’ll protect you. I promise.” 

Sansa doesn’t get a chance to respond; they are thrust into the hoard. They push through silently, Jon keeping an eye out for Sansa, although she never strays too far from him, until they break out of the congestion at the front of the store and take a moment to breathe. 

“Okay. Show me the list.”

“How do you know I have a list?”

“Because you know grocery shopping without a list stresses me out and I didn't make one for today.”

For the tenth time that day, Jon feels exposed— but opens up the Notes app, opens the correct note, and hands over his phone silently. He watches her nod and make small noises of assent, her mouth pursing as he thinks. _Day one._ Jon swallows. Just day one, not even sequestered yet, and she’s all he can see.

* * *

Pasta, green apples, her dairy free probiotic milk. The Belvita biscuits she likes to eat every morning with her coffee; two bags of her favorite ground coffee. Frozen mushrooms; she prefers fresh, but frozen will keep. Jon has thought of everything, down to her favorite pomegranate seltzer. When she hands him his phone back, she can’t look at him. It’s normal for him to notice so much, right? They _are_ roommates. These are just the things you learn about each other when you live together. If it was _she_ who made the list, she’d know to add curry paste and cans of coconut milk and frozen shrimp. His frosted flakes and a dozen cans of tuna. Gallons of orange juice he seems to inhale. The dark chocolate granola he likes to eat straight out of the bag.

She knows him, too.

“Pasta,” Jon says with a wry tone, gesturing at the near empty shelves. Sansa sighs and they take some of what’s left. She stops Jon at six boxes.

He frowns at her. “That’s not enough.”

“We won’t go overboard, remember?" She pushes her cart further down the aisle and starts to pull a bag of rice for him— it’s too heavy, and seconds later she feels Jon’s warm fingers on her knuckles through the gloves. He gently pulls her hands away and hefts the bag of rice with ease. 

“I know, but I won’t let you starve.”

She almost laughs, but the grave expression on his face stops her. “I won’t. It’s not like we can’t come back if we need to. We’ll just have to be careful if we do.”

Jon grits his jaw, but doesn’t object outright. “I’ll come back alone, if it comes to that.”

Again, Sansa’s struck by the urge to laugh, but what stops her this time isn’t anything in his face but something within her; a warmth in her chest. It’s a stranger she once knew, and, eyes swimming, Sansa tries to remember the last time she felt it. The only image she can conjure is one from childhood. Head lolling in the backseat of her parents’ car on the way home from the movies, a cocoon of comfort, knowing she could close her eyes and she’d wake up in her bed.

“Sansa?”

She clears her throat, almost swipes her at her eyes, then sees the gloves and remembers and quickly lowers her hand.

“We live together, so it doesn’t matter who comes,” she points out, grateful when her voice comes out even. Jon frowns, put out by her logic. “Unless you're planning to stay six feet away from me,” she adds, hoping to lighten the mood.

It has the opposite effect; he seems to grow pale. “If I have to. Um... I’ll be careful.”

The warmth in her chest seems to expand, then pinch. She grabs two more boxes of pasta as they head out of the aisle. “Happy?”

Now his expression brightens. “Check,” he says, consulting his list.

They move methodically through the store, maneuvering through the dense crowd with their slowly filling carts. Wordlessly they develop a system where Jon walks into the aisle and grabs what they need while Sansa guards both carts at the front of the aisle. Jon laughs at her when she ducks into the cereal aisle after him, filling her arms with boxes of brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts. “It’s a necessity!” she grins, to which he nods in mock understanding. 

She realizes he has no leg to stand on when he admits he has a shameful guilty pleasure of his own, one he intends to stock up on.

“I’m _shocked,_ Jon!” Sansa feels light as a balloon as she teases him, as she looks at his reddening face, his downcast eyes, the tight but wide grin. He looks wonderful like this; weightless, like her. “I didn’t take you for the junk food type. Never seen you eat it.”

“That's because it’s secret.”

“Do you eat it in your _room,_ Jon Snow?”

He grins wider, his whole face transforming with it. A smile like _that_ from Jon Snow… no wonder he isn’t generous with them, she thinks as she finds herself needing to look away, a bit _too_ lightheaded now.

Sansa fires off some guesses for his illicit junk food while they stock up in the frozen foods aisle and the cleaning agents aisle—she makes sure to grab the two bottles of hand soap on Sarah’s and Harold’s list. She nudges him when they pass the candy aisle, but Jon shakes his head. “It’s in the aisle with the crackers and granola bars.”

Sansa shakes her head in mock disappointment. “Why’d you let me get my hopes up? It’s a healthy snack, isn’t it…”

Jon just shakes his head, pinching his lips together— _I’m not telling._ She feels like a child again, like they’re both children, except they never joked around like this when they were children. With an ache she wonders, wishes it had been different.

She almost squeals when Jon returns from the promised aisle with four yellow boxes in his arms. “Oh my god.” 

Jon places the boxes in their cart carefully. “I don’t feel bad because I’m not depriving anyone of anything important,” he says, completely unnecessarily, somehow still blushing.

Sansa giggles. _“Gushers?_ What are you, a twelve year old boy?” 

“Twelve and a half.” Jon stops his cart in front of the paper products aisle, and Sansa does the same. “We don’t need anything from here. What about—” 

“They need paper towels,” Sansa answers glumly, looking down the bare shelves. “No toilet paper in sight.” 

“Didn’t expect anything different.”

“Nope...” Sansa sighs. “Thank god for your Costco membership. We won’t run out for a month at least.”

“I learned a thing or two from the Starks.” The way he says it, fond and familiar, makes Sansa’s stomach flip. “Let me check for Sarah and Harold...” 

Sansa watches him wade through the maze of stilled shopping carts, the shoppers ducking their heads into the empty shelves as if a pack of toilet paper will materialize. The muscles on her face twitch into a grin, but she controls it. The last thing she wants to do is attract some sort of negative confrontation.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck rise and she whirls in place. She catches the tail end of a blur of motion. Hands digging into her cart— no, the cart further away from her, parked directly in front of the first, Sarah’s and Harold’s cart— and blinks as she realizes the man the hands belong to is taking their hand soap.

“Hey,” she protests, but her voice is hoarse. If he hears her, he ignores her. She swallows as she watches him cross to the line at the registers, dumping the soap that isn’t his—the soap that’s Sarah’s and Harold’s— into his cart.

Sansa allows herself only a few furious seconds to think. When his back is turned, she leaps across the space separating them. Quickly and silently she retrieves the soap and whirls, rushing back to her carts, heart hammering in her chest.

This time Sansa stands vigil, alert, standing between the two carts instead of behind them. She watches as the man raises his head and evaluates his cart, watches the alarm on his features as he realizes he lost his pilfered soap. He looks at her. If he’s surprised to find her glaring back, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he saunters over to her slowly.

Sansa is shocked—starts to vibrate with anger— when he boldly reaches back into her cart, a mere foot from where she stands.

“Hey.” Her voice isn’t hoarse this time. “I need that.” 

“So do I,” he mumbles without looking at her.

“It’s in _my_ cart,” she retaliates indignantly, but he clearly doesn’t care about that, so she changes tactics. “Look, that soap is for an elderly couple. That whole cart is. They need it more than you and me.”

It seems her words have no effect on him. “Sorry babe,” he mutters before he walks away, somehow making the whole thing twice as bad.

The cart behind her nudges her hip; she jumps, then spins, ready to fend off another thief, and finds a puzzled Jon instead. “Sansa?” His eyes rake her over, and his expression instantly changes from confusion to concern. “What’s wrong?”

“That guy.” She hates how much her voice shakes, hates even more how her eyes are suddenly wet. “This guy came up here and took the soap out of Sarah’s and Harold’s cart even though I asked him not to. I took it back and he came back for it…”

Jon’s expression changes again— concern to muted anger. “Did he do anything else—harass you? Touch you?”

“No,” Sansa answers automatically. She swallows, shakes her head, as shame suffuses her. _Stop covering for assholes._ “He called me babe. That’s it.” 

A muscle jumps in Jon’s jaw. The rest of his face remains frozen, locked in muted anger that would be so frightening if she didn’t know it wasn’t directed at her, if it wasn’t _Jon_. “Okay. Okay. Which way did he go?” 

Sansa points him out. “Red hat, over there by the registers. He’s not in line, he’s the one standing off to the side.”

Jon nods, jaw square. “I’ll be right back. Wait here.” He takes the bar of each cart in both of his hands.

“You can’t push both of them,” Sansa protests, feeling both immense relief and more useless than ever. 

“Yes I can,” he says, not curtly but in a tone that suggests this isn’t the time to argue. 

Sansa watches Jon push a cart with each arm, making it look effortless. He stops them in front of the thief, then walks around them to face him and says something that makes the man’s eyes widen in surprise. The man is taller yet Jon seems to tower over him. Sansa can’t see Jon’s expression, can’t hear what he says or see anything but the lines of his back and his strong shoulders. But she can see the man’s expression tense. She can see him finally speak, his thin lips barely moving, as he bends to retrieve the pilfered soap and hands the bottles to Jon.

When Jon returns to her, his face is serene. “Anything else on Sarah’s and Harold’s list?”

Sansa doesn’t need to look. “A few things. Low carb tortilla wraps. Tomato paste. Cans of—”

“Sansa.” His voice is soft, curls around her head like a feather pillow. “Are you alright?”

She nods, furiously. _Don’t be a burden._ “Yes, yes, I promise. Let’s finish this up.”

But Jon doesn’t move. He’s still staring at her with intense eyes, stitched brows. “Do you want to go wait in the car?”

“No… no, I’m fine.” She gives him a smile, tries to make it convincing. “Besides, there’s a couple things on our list too. I think I saw ice cream on there, and I want to pick the flavors.”

Jon doesn’t respond to her babbling, doesn’t take the bait. He only nods after a moment of intense scrutiny. “If you’re sure.”

As they add the last few items to their carts—carts that Jon now guards— Sansa finds herself sticking even closer to him. It doesn’t seem like he minds. In fact, she catches his hand hovering midair a couple of times, as if he started to hold her waist but thought better of it. _Because of the virus._ Better to keep their distance. She’s surprised by the rush of regret and longing that floods her. She wouldn’t mind if he didn’t stop himself, just once, just one comforting touch to the small of her back. Maybe—

Maybe when they go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the grocery store antics were getting too long so i cut this chapter in half! quarantine begins soon!
> 
> inspo for some of the details in this chapter: [(x)](https://twitter.com/T_Lloyd/status/1239338362277855235) [(x)](https://twitter.com/rebecca_mehra/status/1237891575897718791) [(x)](https://vm.tiktok.com/pn4Qtk/)


	3. credit cards and confessions

As they wait in the checkout line, Sansa carefully filters through the second cart, checking and double checking that she hasn’t forgotten anything Sarah and Harold might need. Her thoughts take a morose turn as she wonders about them, about what cruel twists of life led them to this position—no one to lean on, having to rely on strangers in these troubling times. The pang of sympathy that jolts her cannot be separated from the pang of relief at the knowledge that her parents will never be in that position. She and her siblings would never allow it.

When it’s their turn, they move into an unspoken routine. Jon bends by the cart and hands her groceries which she lines and piles up on the conveyor belt; although he disrupts the smooth stream of movement by refusing to hand her anything heavy, stretching to place it on the conveyor belt himself. 

Sansa pauses when the conveyor belt is full. She scans the piles of boxes and bags and places the plastic separator bar where she judges the groceries are separated by half.

Predictably, Jon removes it a second later.

She glares at him, reaches over for the separator and places it again with force, though it doesn’t make a sound.

“Sansa…”

“Jon,” she replies in the same infuriatingly infantilizing, _do-what-I-say_ voice.

When he starts to reach for the bar again, Sansa leans forward, almost stopping him by reaching out. But she stops herself, her gloved hand inches from his. 

“Sansa, it’s not a big—”

“No,” she cuts him off as firmly as she can. She can’t let this escalate, can’t afford to be pushed. Jon thinks he’s being kind, she knows, and he _is,_ kind and generous too. She suspects that if it were up to Jon—that if Robb hadn’t hid the truth from Jon all those months ago, that if he hadn’t presented Sansa as a potential roommate with all her dignity intact—he wouldn’t take rent from her. Gestures like this make her suspect that he’s still tempted to cover her share. But he doesn’t know how his generosity is twisted into painful reminders of the differences between their careers, their financial states, _them._ The difference between the Sansa Stark he thinks he knows, and the Sansa Stark she is. The difference between who is she is and who she wanted to be. 

Jon must read something in her face because he relents, even taking a step back. “Alright.”

They reverse their earlier motions as they reload their groceries into the cart. Sansa pays first, feeling that heart-stop of anxiety as she inserts her debit card and waits—she _knows_ she has the funds but it’s a hard habit to shake—and the following sigh, release of relief. Jon pays for the second half, then they repeat the process with Sarah’s and Harold’s cart. Their total exceeds the hundred dollar bill they gave Sansa, but before she can say anything about it Jon is inserting his credit card into the machine.

That feeling again—warmth in her chest. Silent admiration. The world is quieter as she watches him, oblivious, eyes trained on the keypad. A curl escaping from where he’d tucked his hair behind his ear, obscuring the profile of his nose.

Before they start transferring the groceries back to the cart, Sansa makes sure to give him the money Sarah and Harold had given her.

Sansa breathes a sigh of relief when they exit the store, lets the fresh air fills her lungs. There’s a new spring in her step as she pushes the cart towards the gold sedan. She waves at Sarah as they approach.

“Oh!” Sarah’s expression shifts from mild shock to relief to gratitude in the few seconds it takes her to roll down her window. 

“We got everything,” Sansa assures her. “Jon has your receipt, and we’ll sanitize everything before we put it in your trunk.” She pulls out a pack of Clorox wipes from her purse.

“Thank you so much,” Sarah gushes, at the same time Harold gruffly asks Jon, “Let me see that receipt.”

Jon comes around to Harold’s window, standing parallel to Sansa. The men talk in hushed tones while Harold examines the receipt. When Jon gives her a nod over the hood of the car, the two of them circle back to the trunk. 

They work as a unit once more, sanitizing the bags and boxes as well as they can before stacking them in the large trunk. Halfway through Sarah calls Sansa’s name, and Jon waves her on, mouthing “I got it.”

Sarah asks her questions about her family, where they’re living and how they’re doing. Sansa talks about Rickon and Bran and her parents up in Winterfell, a picturesque perpetually-winter town in Vermont. She tells her about Arya and Robb, both happily married. Sarah is full of endless, pleasantly curious questions while Harold just continues to stare ahead, although Sansa can tell he’s listening by the occasional twitch of a brow or his lip. When Jon firmly shuts the trunk, Sarah asks her for her phone number. Sansa recites it clearly and slowly while Sarah inputs it into an old silver iPhone with a bulky yellow case. Sansa diligently takes their home number and both their cell numbers, reading them all back twice at Sarah’s request. 

After they’ve said goodbye and watched the gold sedan slowly drive away, Sansa and Jon repeat the process of packing their groceries into his car, although Jon urges her twice to wait inside. Sansa declines politely the first time, but frowns the second.

“Is Robb forcing you to act this way?”

Jon pauses, just for a moment, two boxes of diet soda cans in his arms. “What way?”

“Like I’m made of glass,” Sansa explains, focusing on stacking boxes of cereal and oatmeal so as not to look at him. “Explain it to me… you two had no problem with pranks and scaring the shit out of me when we were kids.” Sansa doesn’t say what she suspects; that she was only included because of her proximity to Arya and the other, more fun Stark siblings.

Jon laughs. “Still not over the ghost prank?”

Sansa gives him a death glare, a sufficient enough answer which seems to amuse him even further.

“God, that was funny. Robb couldn’t believe you ran out, leaving your kid siblings behind.”

Sansa smiles tightly, though she knows he means no harm. But she’s never been able to fully shake the feeling, no matter how much she _knows_ her family loves her, that she’s the least brave, the least selfless, the least Stark. “What can I say… fight or flight. Arya made fun of me for weeks, so you got your wish.”

She’s looking at him when she says it, so she sees the brief flash of hurt twitch through face. She wonders if a part of her wanted to put it there, to hurt him back.

“Not my wish. I asked her to let up, you know, I could see you were upset, but, well…” He smiles, weakly. “You know Arya.”

Sansa feels shamed, regrets her petty remark. “She didn’t mean any harm. None of you did. I know it was harder for you guys to connect with me, when we were younger… god, Arya and I had a huge conversation about it before I left for college… but, yeah, it felt nice to be included. Even like that.”

Jon’s looking at her, staring like he could uncover something with his eyes alone, completely stalled in packing the groceries into the trunk. “Is that how you felt?”

Sansa nods, feeling stupid as she does. He’s probably thinking it was all a self-fulfilling prophecy, all her doing. “You were all so… close, a matched set. I didn’t feel like I belonged.”

To her surprise, Jon’s response is a sage nod. “Weird. That’s how _I_ felt.”

He resumes packing, maybe trying to hide his face from her. “I wanted to be a Stark so badly back then. I mean… I loved being Mum’s son, but it was just the two of us, she was always so busy… I wanted to be one of you. _Really_ one of you.”

Something in Sansa’s chest clenches to the point of pain. She’s overcome with the urge to reach out and touch him, hug him, but her fingers flexing against the vinyl of her gloves remind her why she can’t. She wants to tell him he _is_ a Stark in every way but in name, that her parents consider him another son, that Robb and the others all consider him a brother. But the use of the word “brother” grates at her skin, feels impossible to say.

“You _are_ one of us, you’re—” _Family,_ she was going to say, but something stops her. “I hope you know that by now,” she tries to cover the slip, quiet but earnest.

“I know.” The way he still doesn’t meet her eyes stabs her with guilt, with shame. For a reason she’s never been able to figure out— a thing she’s refused to examine— she’s never been able to see him as a brother. Even now, when they’ve been living as nothing more than siblings for so many months, when he constantly tries to show her that she is a little sister to him, treating her with the same care Robb or her father would. And he must know it. It must hurt him.

“You’re a Stark, Jon.” Her voice is full of conviction now, a belated attempt to fix the ways she must have hurt him. It couldn’t have been anyone else but her who made him feel so excluded, and it was on her to fix it, especially when he’s been so kind. “Especially to me.”

A slight smile—not a bright one, but one touched with something dark, bitterness or irony or regret— curls the corners of his mouth. “I know. I know that’s how you see me.”

He doesn’t say it like the balm she intended it to be. Sansa continues to pile the groceries in—they’re on the lightest things now, a carton of eggs and bags of spinach and arugula. Jon’s hand bumps into hers over a case of blueberries and Sansa retreats quickly, considering it an accident. But Jon he chases her fingers with his, tugging on them, until she stills and he wraps them in his.

“I’m sorry we made you feel like we didn’t belong.”

“No—no, it was a childhood insecurity thing, you don’t have to—”

“Sansa.” His tone is stern but soft. The _do-what-I-say_ voice wrapped in butter, in silk. “The Starks… your family… well, from what I’ve seen, they don’t make sense without you. You’re the glue.”

The second mother, the mediator. Sansa knows her role well. She doesn’t resent it—she knows now in adulthood that everyone plays a role—but she wishes, she hopes, she can be something else to someone.

 _“Our_ family,” she says with a little smile, but she can’t decide if Jon seems happier as he finally closes the trunk.

* * *

The cabinets, freezer, and slim closet that serves as a pantry are full to bursting. Jon doesn’t feel the weariness in his bones— the way his muscles have been tense all day, coiled, ready to pounce— until he settles back onto the couch.

It’s tiring, braving the outside world beside Sansa Stark. If he was alone it would have been entirely different, easier; only himself to take care of. With her, the stakes were high. He felt as if he had too few eyes, too few limbs, wished he could be everywhere at once. Sansa’s wit and her lovely buoyancy kept him from feeling the anxiety too acutely. He knew she could take care of herself; everyone had to. She’d done so before him and would continue to do so after him—though the thought of an ‘after’ makes his chest ache. But he felt immense gratitude that she wasn’t alone when that asshole tried to lift things from their cart, when he disrespected her.

Jon doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes until he feels the couch dip as Sansa settles beside him. “I’m starving,” she says. “And it’s _not_ just because we just got back from the grocery store.”

He feels himself smiling; she makes it so, so easy. He shifts up and opens his eyes slowly, taking her in on the couch so close to him bit by bit. “Makes sense, you barely ate breakfast.”

She looks at him so strangely, eyes piercing and soft but _confusing,_ that he has to speak to end it. “I’ll make dinner.”

“It’s way too early for dinner.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Jon watches as a mischievous grin spreads across her face. “Damn societal conventions when we’re under quarantine, is that it?”

He swallows. “Something like that.”

“They say it’s healthier to have a big lunch and a light dinner anyway,” she says, and Jon feels like an ass for his salacious thoughts. “Alright. We’ll have dinner for lunch. Then when you get hungry later, _inevitably,_ I’ll make some popcorn. The one you like.”

Jon tilts his head, not sure he heard right. Sansa doesn’t make her gourmet popcorn unless… “You want to watch a movie?”

“Full on movie night.”

Movie nights are frequent in their house—Jon’s eighty inch television and luxurious seating arrangement make it a top choice of location among his friends— but Jon can’t remember the last time Sansa sat in on one for more than fifteen minutes as she passed through the living room on her way to some other engagement. Arya was good at bullying her into staying, before she and Gendry moved away. Sansa has certainly never sat through a movie alone with him. He figures—wonders, hopes—this will be the first of many.

“What do you want to watch?” He crosses to the kitchen with a spring in his step, a bounce he hopes isn’t pathetically noticeable.

The options seem endless. Sansa goes through a mental list of movies she’s been meaning to get to while Jon prepares the salad Sansa requested for their meal. He tosses a can of corn and some spices in a saucepan and stirs a pot of cooking quinoa, then chops an onion while he waits. Sansa gradually moves closer and closer as they talk, until she’s sitting at one of the counter stools. When they venture into television shows they’ve been wanting to watch, Sansa groans, “We’ll never get off the couch.”

Jon doesn’t think that sounds so bad, but he keeps that opinion to himself. “We’ll be fine. We’ll take walks and stay active.”

“Maybe _you_ will. I’m in danger of becoming a full time couch potato,” Sansa huffs. Jon resists the urge to roll his eyes at her. He knows Sansa, grew up with her, remembers the disciplined ballet dancer and aerobics enthusiast, often in her room with the newest at-home-workout DVD she’d persuaded her parents to buy. It’s Jon who’ll have to adjust; he’s used to going to the gym five or six days a week.

As if reading his mind, she asks, “Can I use your weights and stuff?”

“Of course,” Jon automatically answers, though he isn’t sure how much use his little home gym will be to her. The weights are far out of what he imagines her limit to be. “I can train you,” he offers, resolving to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.

She instantly perks up. “Thanks. And we can do yoga together, I’ll teach you… if you want.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, her eyes lowering. “We’ll probably want to do some things apart. So we don’t get sick of each other.”

Jon waits until she looks up, then he smiles gently. “I’m not worried about that.”

Her answering smile is a bright torrent of relief.


End file.
